Intercultural Conversation on the Topic of Risk

Mr. Hikaru Yokoyama of Japan

Our second intercultural conversation of Fall 2014, on the topic of risk, was held on Thursday, October 30. Our reporter for this second intercultural conversation is Mr. Hikaru Yokoyama, an exchange student from Sophia University in Japan with a major in international relations. This semester, as an exchange student at Loyola University New Orleans, Hikaru is in the Pilot Program of the Loyola Intensive English Program (LIEP), where he takes two credit-bearing courses in English skills as well as two courses in other fields at Loyola.

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An Intercultural Conversation on Risk
By Hikaru Yokoyama

Recently, it is getting much colder than I had expected, which makes me feel that time actually flies. Over two months have passed since I began to study in the Loyola Intensive English Program (LIEP), and this is already the second time for me to attend an intercultural conversation, where we talk about specific subjects from our class readings and discussions with guests from various back grounds. The discussion was professionally led by Dr. David O'Donaghue, a philosopher, psychologist, and artist, and the founder and director of the New Orleans Lyceum and of Chautauqua New Orleans for life-long learning. Our guests were Ms. Dee Smith and Mr. Ed Wadsworth from New Orleans, who shared ideas with us and helped us with understanding the local cultural values.

This time, our intercultural conversation topic was risk. In class, we had read The Circle Harp by Donna Glee Williams and The Chinese Boy by George Bishop, two short stories about people who take important risks.

The discussion started with a question from Dr. David O'Donaghue. He asked about the risk that we are taking right now: the decision to study in a different environment. One LIEP student told us the story of her marriage. She came to the United States some years ago without enough skills of English, knowledge, and preparation, to marry a man who lives in the United States. Her parents objected, telling her the difficulties she would have in an unknown place without enough language skills and with an intercultural marriage, but she decided to go with her strong will. In her case, what moved her the most was love. Probably she knew what would happen. She would have difficulty communicating with the local people and suffer from cultural adjustment. Of course, she missed her country. Then, as time passed, she sometimes felt uncomfortable during visits to her own country, since her adjustment was in a transition phase between the two cultures. However, she did. She took the risk.

Another LIEP student told us about his risk in coming to the United States for a career change. He had a good job in his own country. He was in a good position at his office, but one day he quit his job to train in the United States as a life coach. He has now begun working as a life couch, who helps people seeking to make changes in their lives. Surprisingly, he said he didn’t feel so nervous when he quit his job, because he loves a challenge. He has changed his career and is ready to dive into a new world. He said that he has always felt pleasure in doing new things. His current work as a life coach is to help people to face the challenge of doing what they like to do. In terms of the subject of the discussion, he seems to enjoy the risk he takes. An interesting way of handling risk; to enjoy. It was a good lesson for me.

Sometimes, we tend to hesitate for a while in front of a risk. If I fail, it might cause problems; even if I succeed at first, no one promises a steady benefit from the risk I take. However, these two LIEP students who told their stories gave me one important thought: we can be simple about the decision. Of course, we have to take care of ourseves, we have to be circumspect, we have to make sure our plan is well matured, especially if it might involve our family or friends. After that, we can just be simple. I do it because I want to. I go there because I love the person. I change my work because I have found something more interesting. This is what I felt during the second intercultural conversation of this semester.

It is always interesting and informative to meet people whose backgrounds are unfamiliar. This sometimes makes me question my old values formed in my one specific culture. I look forward to the next intercultural conversation, which will be held close to Christmas, and to meeting new values and cultures.

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Thank you, Mr. Hikaru Yokoyama, for your informative reporting on our intercultural conversation about risk!

Because this intercultural conversation took place on October 30, the day before Halloween, we enjoyed some delicious Halloween treats! Two enthusiastic students also came in costume!

We were served Halloween treats: black olives, orange cheddar cheese with black pepper crackers and herbed crackers, orange pumpkin bread, dark brown chocolate squares.

We enjoy our Halloween treats while getting acquainted in small groups before the Intercultural Conversation proper.

Two enthusiastic LIEP students came to the Intercultural Conversation in Halloween costumes! Mr. Tom Almeida of Brazil (left) came as Iron Man, and Ms. Ingrid Rogriguez-Fierro of Guatemala (right) came in her spider dress!

Intercultural Conversation on Justice - Mercy - Revenge

Our third Intercultural Conversation this semester at the Loyola Intensive English Program (LIEP) took place on Thursday, November 14. Each Intercultural Conversation is an opportunity to exchange ideas on a timely topic from different cultural perspectives, bringing together LIEP students, other members of the Loyola community, and interested New Orleanians. Our facilitator is Dr. David O’Donaghue, the founder and director of the New Orleans Lyceum and of Chautauqua New Orleans for life-long learning.

For this final Intercultural Conversation of the semester, we decided to include something special—a time for LIEP students and New Orleans participants to visit informally in small groups before coming together for our larger discussion. As we visited at small tables, we enjoyed cheese and fruit, as well as delicious brownies and lemon squares baked by one of our New Orleans participants.

Natsumi Akiyoshi of Japan

Natsumi Akiyoshi of Japan remarked that she enjoyed the conversation at her table of four, with two other LIEP students and one New Orleans participant. Natsumi said that the conversation turned to political and religious differences among Japan, Venezuela, and the United States. Natsumi was impressed that there are so many Christians in Venezuela, where religion is a prominent part of a person’s education and is discussed in daily conversation. Natsumi said that Japanese do not often talk about religion, so this difference interested her.

Soon it was time for us all to come together for the Intercultural Conversation. Because our class had read and discussed Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, we chose a related question:

What do we do when someone has committed a wrong?

What factors lead to revenge or justice or mercy?

In class, we had seen how revenge, justice, and mercy work together in Shakespeare’s story of the Christian merchant Antonio and the Jewish moneylender Shylock.

Revenge

• REVENGE: Hurting someone excessively to get back at someone for a prior hurt. In The Merchant of Venice, we see revenge operating in the Jewish moneylender Shylock, who has been deeply and frequently insulted by Christians like Antonio. Shylock is almost gleeful in his anticipation of cutting a pound of flesh from Antonio’s body.
• JUSTICE: Exacting a penalty that matches the wrong done. In The Merchant of Venice, we see a kind of justice in the penalties required by the Venetian legal system for someone who  seeks to take the life of another.
• MERCY: Wholeheartedly accepting a lesser penalty than an offense merits, or possibly foregoing any penalty at all. In The Merchant of Venice, mercy is discussed at length, but is very scarce in practice.

For this Intercultural Conversation, we looked at how revenge, justice, and mercy work in our own responses when someone does something wrong. The participants focused largely on finding positive ways to handle wrong-doing by others.

Justice

RESOLVE ISSUES OR LET GO. A student from Saudi Arabia said that he always strove to follow the advice of his father, who counseled that peace of mind comes from letting go and forgetting about it when another person behaves annoyingly. Others cautioned that sometimes, if an issue is not resolved, it can fester and possibly lead to harmful revenge. We agreed that it is best to talk about an issue and resolve it if possible, but when no resolution is possible, it is best to let go fully.

TRY TO TEACH THE OTHER WHAT IT FEELS LIKE. Another student from Saudi Arabia said that people are often unaware of the effects of their actions. This student believes that it helps if an offending person can feel the effect of his behavior from the receiving end. With a close friend or family member, if explaining the effect of offending behavior doesn’t help, this student will try to create a situation where the tables can be turned and the offender can be given a taste of how it feels to be treated as he has been treating others. We agreed that this can be effective if used very sparingly as a teaching tool in a close relationship.

Mercy

PUT YOURSELF IN THE OTHER’S SHOES. One of our LIEP instructors suggested that the offending person may intend no offense at all. This instructor tries to put herself in the place of the offending person, which often helps to change her perspective. She has come to see that some offenses are completely unintentional.

DISTINGUISH BETWEEN INTENTIONAL AND UNINTENTIONAL HARM. A New Orleans participant said that he finds it easier to respect and deal with a person who is intentionally hurtful. To him, this makes the issue very clear and easy to confront. But some people, he said, hide an intention to hurt, even from themselves, causing them to say or do hurtful things while proclaiming good will. In such cases, the issue is blurred and cannot be confronted openly.

FINAL THOUGHT. Dr. David O’Donaghue offered a final important thought—Harm is not a good teacher. People find it hard to learn from revenge, whereas there is a much greater chance of learning when justice or mercy is offered.

Thank you to Dr. David O'Donaghue and to our LIEP students and New Orleans friends who participated in this thought-provoking Intercultural Conversation.

Intercultural Conversation on Responsibility

The recent work of the Advanced Reading class of the Loyola Intensive English Program (LIEP) has revolved around environmental issues of global warming and climate change. As described in our previous two posts, the class has read the book Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth by Mark Hertsgaard, watched the film An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore, and visited with environmental expert Dr. Aimée K. Thomas, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Loyola University New Orleans.

To complement our work on global warming and climate change, we focused our second Intercultural Conversation of the semester on responsibility. Each of our Intercultural Conversations is a wonderful opportunity to carry our discussion beyond the classroom walls: we meet in one of the seminar rooms of Loyola's library and invite members of the Loyola community and interested New Orleanians to share ideas with us. Our discussions are expertly led by Dr. David O'Donaghue, a philosopher, psychologist, and artist, and the founder and director of the New Orleans Lyceum and of Chautauqua New Orleans for life-long learning.

Our first Intercultural Conversation of the semester focused on crisis. This second Intercultural Conversation focused on responsibility with this question:

Do we have a responsibility to past and future generations?

If so, how do we exercise this responsibility?

Our reading encouraged us to think of our responsibility to care for the earthly legacy of past generations and to leave a clean and beautiful planet for future generations, but we were open to looking at other areas of responsibility to past and future generations as well.

As we began our Intercultural Conversation, turning our attention first to a definition of responsibility, the idea of duty emerged. Some of us felt that duty could be burdensome, while others felt that duty instilled a sense of pride. One student from Saudi Arabia spoke of his first taste of responsibility, at age ten, when he was asked to take care of his young niece for a little while. This duty, or obligation, that he had been given caused him to feel good about himself: he experienced a kind of honor in being the big one and caring for the little one. On the other hand, another member of the Loyola community expressed how he had initially found the responsibility of child-care burdensome until he switched his thinking from child-care as fulfilling a duty to child-care as true caring from the heart.

The idea emerged that responsibility in excess can have negative consequences. Over-caring for others can prevent those others from learning to exercise life skills on their own. It can also lead to over-working and neglecting our own self-care so that we become tired and lose our enthusiasm for life.

As we began to speak of our responsibility to the past and to the future, one New Orleanian pointed out the importance of our inter-connectedness with each other, with our ancestors, and with generations yet to come. A student from Saudi Arabia spoke of the hopeful direction he sees in his country, where an attitude of the powerful overcoming the weak has been replaced with an attitude of mutual respect and support, of recognizing our inter-connectedness. A student from Brazil spoke of the warmth of his countrymen, their willingness to help each other, and their ready smiles. On the other hand, a student from Japan expressed regret that some of the cultural treasures of the past in the city of Kyoto had not been preserved as carefully as he would wish.

The LIEP students, the other members of the Loyola community, and the New Orleanians who participated in this Intercultural Conversation all enjoyed the pleasure of enlarging our concept of responsibility by hearing the ideas of others and sharing our own ideas. We extend a huge THANK YOU to all the participants in our second Intercultural Conversation and to Dr. David O'Donaghue for his expert leadership of our discussion! 

LIEP Students Learning About Crisis

By Felix Garmendia

           

Crisis: House on Fire

Earlier this semester, my classmates from the Loyola Intensive English Program (LIEP) and I had the opportunity to learn about crisis and how people react to it.  As part of the Advanced Reading class, my classmates and I started gathering ideas about the characteristics people have when confronting a crisis. Some of the ideas provided by the students included activeness, determination, intelligence, and positive and critical thinking.  The majority of us knew how people behave during a crisis; however, we concluded that we wouldn’t know how we would react in a crisis or the possible effects of it in our life. Some of the doubts were clarified when we read and discussed the follow articles in class.

• "States of Emergency" in Newsweek of 15 May 2011
• "Crash Course" by Jay Dixit in Psychology Today of 1 July 2009
• "What It Takes to Survive" by Ben Sherwood in Newsweek of 23 January 2009
• "Working Through Fear" by Judith Sills in Psychology Today of 1 July 2009

Crisis: Head-On Car Crash

After reading and analyzing the experiences described by the authors in the different articles, we were very interested to learn more about this topic. Why do some people freeze during a crisis? Why do others become more active and try to help?

The students had many questions before they learned the concepts of active passiveness, normalcy bias, and incredulity response, described in the articles.

With a little bit of understanding about the concept of crisis, we were ready for our first Intercultural Conversation. This is a meeting where the students have the opportunity to express their ideas about a specific topic. In this meeting, we mix international students, native English speaking members of the Loyola community, and some New Orleanians who come to the Loyola campus to share with us. 

Dr. David O'Donaghue

Dr. David O'Donaghue, who is a philosopher, psychologist, and artist and who founded and directs the New Orleans Lyceum and Chautauqua New Orleans for life-long learning, was in charge to conduct the participants through a discussion of crisis and ways to respond. He began talking about crisis and perceptions that people have about crisis. The students were fascinated hearing the experienced opinion of Dr. David O'Donaghue. The people from the New Orleans community provided many interesting stories about the reaction that people had when Hurricane Katrina destroyed many places in the city. In the same way, people from the New Orleans community had a good time learning about the different stories that students told. We were all impressed by the fact that people act differently depending on their culture, beliefs and previous experiences. For instance, the students from Japan talked about the crisis they experienced in Tohoku with the tsunami in 2011. Also, a student from Brazil talked about how the economic crisis was affecting poor people in his country.

Crisis: Earthquake

We had an unforgettable experience learning about crisis and the effects it causes in people. We had the opportunity to clarify our ideas with interesting articles we read, discussed and analyzed in class. Finally, we learned a lot when we had the Intercultural Conversation. In this meeting, we discussed people´s reactions, experiences and learnings when confronting a crisis. My classmates and I are anxious to know what will the topic be for the next Intercultural Conversation.

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Felix Garmendia of Venezuela

A huge thank-you to LIEP student Felix Garmendia for this post about the work of our Advanced Reading class with the topic of crisis and response to crisis. Felix is a corporate lawyer in Venezuela. This Fall 2013 semester, he is beginning his course work for the LL.M. degree in the College of Law at Loyola University New Orleans while also perfecting his English writing and reading skills in the Loyola Intensive English Program. In addition, Felix is an artist, with paintings on display at Garmendia Art Gallery on Magazine Street in New Orleans. Thank you, Felix!